Trust: the most important tool in the writer’s pencil case

Many of my writer pals are gearing up for National Vomit on the Page Month. Sorry, that is my snarky way of describing NaNoWriMo – National Write a Novel Month. The goal is to write every day during the month of November and by the end of the month you will, hopefully, have written a 50,000 novel. Well, let’s be honest, you’ll have a first draft of a novel.

Everyone is using these last few days in October to create their plan of attack: writing outlines, planning plot structures, creating character sketches and back stories, lining up the ducks in nice rows, all the essential planning every writer must do. So, come November 1st, Booyah, the blood letting begins.

I thought I’d put in my two cents (or about 600 words) on what I think is the writer’s most important tool in their pencil case. That tool is trust. Where am I going with this, you ask? Trust me. I’ll take you there.

It is my experience that every novel, story, stage play, or any work of art, has a mind of its own. In the Dramatica Theory of Storytelling, they literally describe it as the Storymind. Your story is a model of a human mind trying to solve a problem. I found this theory liberating in that, I didn’t have to do the heavy lifting any more. I don’t have to dream this up. Somewhere, out there in the imagination, or Image-Nation, my story already existed. All I had to do is be willing enough and diligent enough to take it all down. This is when trust becomes your best writing tool.

You have to trust that your story’s mind is as smart or even smarter than you are. You have to trust that it will reveal itself to you in the way it wants to. So, you dive in and you think the story you’re going to write is a touching, gentle romance between a trans-gendered vampire cowboy and a young rancher girl set in the sweeping Montana landscape. Great. You sit you butt in the chair on November 1st and say, “story, reveal yourself,” and you think about your dreamy cowboy vampire hero. You start to type, but you find yourself writing about some ugly trucker driving some loser bookie off the road in Florida. What? What? What? Where’s the tender romance? Where are the vistas of Montana? Who is this jerk character I don’t like?

This is the moment when you have to trust the process. Because by the time you get to the end of the first draft, you’ll know that trucker is the deadbeat father of the cowboy that your rancher girl falls in love with. It is precisely because his father was a loser, that our cowboy escaped a sordid life on the highways and chose to become a trans-gendered vampire cowboy.

Now, I know this all sounds a little naive. But trust me. I speak from experience. Writing is really re-writing. Once you have that first draft complete is when you really know what your story is and then you begin to work it, to use the rest of the tools in your pencil case: point-of-view, precise language, metaphor, pacing, voice. That’s when you craft out the story you want to tell. But when you trust that your story has a mind of it’s own, that the work becomes a collaboration between the two minds. That is something awesome to behold.

What do you think my lovelies? Do you trust me? Or do you think this is all crap and that you must outline your story within an inch of its margins? No matter what, best of luck to you all, I hope you meet your writing goals and kick some literary ass.

In my 4 years of “winning” NaNo, I never plotted. Only one story turned out to be worth saving, but that was an experience thing not a plotting thing.

I too am a panster. I try to plot out major plot points, but more often than not my characters hijack the whole thing.

I think, if plotting works for you, plot to an inch of your (story’s?) life. If you would rather throw caution (and your characters) to the wind, then just start putting words on paper and see where you end up. With either choice you never wind up where you thought you’d go. I always wonder if all plotters force themselves to stick to the orginal plot or if they change it while they go.

For me, I am such a structure geek and since I writer murder mysteries there are clues and red herrings and subplots galore. But when I try to outline it all, it sucks all the emotional life out of the story. So I plow right in and then those great moments show up, “oh, that’s how he got away with it,” and I re-outline again. No matter how you do it, it’s a fun ride.

Ahahaha! When I read “National Vomit on the Page Month” I did have to be sipping coffee. It’s all your fault that my nose is burning right now, Rachel. But as we all know, sometimes love hurts 😉

I’m always interested in how others plot. For me, every novel begins only with knowing how I want it to feel. From there, I conceive plot points. I know I want certain events to occur, and they become landmarks that I write toward. I don’t like plotting out a novel completely. Like a reader, I want to discover things as I go along, too. But between each landmark, I allow myself room to play with all the elements involved to that point, but also keeping in mind that I have to end up at the next landmark.

Sorry about the coffee in the nose thing. This whole process of plotting vs. pantsing fascinates me. I tried pantsing my last book and wrote what turned out to be about the first one fourth of the book. Then it was re-writing, more plotting, more re-writing. Landmarks are great, what ever works is great. Just keep on keepin’ on, because we all know how easy it would be to give up. So, don’t give up.

Definately, I can be a panster. However, and it’s taken me a loooong time to realise this, every story needs a framework. It’s hard work, but I take anything up to a week to jot down a rough outline/framework/synopsis. And I mean rough. The creative process tends to ebb and flow and not always when I want it to either.

Some of the things I’ve tried are mindmaps which were useless. Index cards have been quite good for ideas and scenes etc. I’ve gone back to purely writing scenes and then link them up.

Jack Bickham’s book on Scene & Structure has been a revelation. He doesn’t speak in analogies and I ‘get’ him, that’s half the battle!

I tried twice, and failed both times, to write NaNo’s 50,000 words. I’m not a plotter, but I am an edit-as-I-go perfectionist. And telling a perfectionist not to be a perfectionist is much like telling a worrier not to worry. Telling is an outside force. Perfectionism and “worryism” are inherent chains of amino acids that must remain unaffected by advice to disappear.

So I don’t know what I think of trusting a story to tell itself to me.

No, that’s a lie.

Stories are colorful explications of ideas; and either you have an idea (i.e. creative magnetic urge), or you don’t. That’s the reason most polite writers, in my opinion, shiver at the chestnut question, “Where do you get your ideas?” Usually the questioner doesn’t have any, and the writer doesn’t want to hurt the questioner’s feelings by saying so.

Yup, I am all about trusting the story to reveal itself to me. I straddle the middle ground between the two points that Asrai is talking about above. Yes, I’m plotting my NaNo novel, but only because my last attempt at pure pantsing left me dazed and confused mid-month. If I wasn’t on a schedule, it wouldn’t have been a big deal, but with a deadline bearing down on me, it was horrifying.

So I’ve plotted this new story, but for me, ‘plotting’ means that I sit down with a pen and paper and just… wander. I take stream-of-consciousness notes, and somewhere in the process, crazy things emerge, like the fact that my princess is going to get kidnapped at the end of part two by the king of the barbarian clan to the north of her kingdom, and that oh, btw, the king of the barbarians is actually a fairly gentle guy who’s a widower with a precious 2 year old son. As I go, I start to organize potential scenes, and eventually, those scenes get turned into bullet-points. I keep things flexible enough that I can follow whatever whims strike while I’m in the midst of writing, but structured enough so I know that at the end of things, I’ll actually have a functioning plot, and not some goopy mess of words.

I don’t know where these things come from, and I don’t question it. Rather, I indulge in the magic of ideas flowing forth from my pen, and the strange alchemy of characters emerging to inform me (with varying levels of politeness and dignity) of what is going to happen next. I write trusting that every so often, a scene will drop into my lap, complete and intact, and I’ll have to race to scribble down every last detail I can wring from my memory. So I agree, Rachel! Trust is a huge factor (at least for me), and I’ve learned to embrace it. 😀

I am so with you, Rachel. I like to know my characters and what makes them who they are today. and i know that i’m playing God and i’m going to give them something to make them change. but other than that? Nothing.

in the book I just finished (the crappy first draft) I found out about 80% though who the villain was (hero’s mom) and at about 90% i found out why she was such a nasty pain. it was all so exciting – like reading it for the first time.

can you imagine how painful editing is for me? yikes – but that’s coming up.

This was just what I needed to read right now!
I’ve been having trouble trying to outline my stories. Finally I gave in and just let myself write a summary and let it guide me to the end. I didn’t worry about chapters or scenes, I let the characters tell me their story. When I allowed myself to let go of the restraints, I was able to create a good foundation and even write the first chapter. I’m sure there are going to be tweaks along the way from my little summarized version to my rough draft. But that’s expected regardless of what process I use.
My real problem is that I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to write a good story without doing the outline and a detailed analysis. I was struggling with what I thought I was supposed to do versus what I do naturally as a writer.
Your post made perfect sense to me. I need to trust that instinct and let myself work through all the loops.
Thanks for sharing this Rachel!

I’m in the process of editing my first novel, and when I go back and read through my earliest drafts I’m shocked. I had one character literally rise up and take over. I originally visioned her as a minor player and actually wrote her out early on. Until she shoved her way to the front and yelled at me! “What the h#@& are you doing?! Don’t you dare ignore me and write me out! You need me more than that other dude you have as the bad guy. I’m much worse than he is.” Now she’s in it through all three books. I totally trust in the story to reveal itself after that.

I completely agree. The story drives the process for me. I do find myself stepping back somewhere near the end and making sure everything is lining up. But you are right, trust the story and the characters and it is amazing how things will just flow together. As if it is already there just waiting to be written down.

I did some planning and some brain stewing, but for the most part I am a pantser. I still am not sure if that’s a good thing considering how many times I had to rewrite my last two novels. But, I like your post because it makes me feel a little bit better about the whole pantser thing. Anyway the part that I get excited about, is the discovery that happens while writing–and i trust that! 🙂

Dear Jo, I’m so glad you found it helpful. It’s tough some times, but I also remind myself that my story is essentially smarter than I am, and I have to trust that the right pieces of the puzzle will show up when they need to. Good luck and thank you so much for your kind words.

The New Social Alchemy

Social Alchemy: is my version of the digital salon. Where interesting ideas are bandied about, where opinions are appreciated. Where all that makes life interesting: art, creativity, writing, love, and compassion are explored in many facets. And it's also a place to come and relax. When you want to turn off the digital noise, kick back, relax, and just be yourself. Thank you so much for visiting.